“You are a bad, bad man, Hugo Finnell,” she said, but there was a deliciously wicked glint in her eyes.

After the success of their anniversary dinner, the two of them had come out together for another evening out. Thus was constituted Date Night, which the two of them wanted to be a regular night out where they could really focus on each other.

They might have rekindled their passion, but ensuring it did not wane again was going to take dedication—they both saw that. A regular night where they could simply let go and remember they were still just dating, even if they both had rings and knew they had each other for life—they were still discovering each other, still exploring each other, still teasing and flirting and seducing each other.

“I’m not kidding. He keeps sneaking looks up your dress.”

“He is not—”

Madeleine suddenly drew in her breath—looking over the rim of her wine glass, as though the remaining traces of Sauvignon Blanc would keep her from discovery, she saw the pianist’s eyes dash toward her, then away.

“You are wearing a scandalously short dress,” Hugo noted dryly.

“I thought you might like it.”

“I do like it.”

“Maybe we should go find a table instead,” Madeleine said, but Hugo saw her attention flick over, almost imperceptibly, to the piano player again, to determine that he was still checking her out.

And there, he saw her very subtly turn on her stool so that any glance her way might afford the man another view up her dress.

“We can’t move—you’re having too much fun,” Hugo said, and now he stood to draw the attention of the bartender, signaling for a top-up of their drinks.

As the drinks were poured, Madeleine looked at her husband, and tucked a rogue strand of her golden hair behind her ear before rubbing her legs together, clearly teasing the piano player again. Hugo flashed his eyes knowingly at her while the bartender finished pouring his single malt.

Now Madeleine was crossing her legs, stroking her long hair as though flirting with someone. Hugo subtly glanced over towards the pianist, and caught his surreptitious monitoring of Madeleine’s position.

“You like the look of him?” he asked her, feeling off, even after everything.

“He’s cute.”

He didn’t blame the guy for looking. Madeleine did look incredible with those smooth legs, and that little dress molded to her figure while covering surprisingly little. It made Hugo feel all warm inside, not really jealous. Proud, perhaps, lucky. Seriously aroused. The guy wasn’t doing anything other than looking—no harm in that—and the effect of it on Madeleine was palpable. A youngish African-American—probably a few years younger than them—he was coolly confident in himself, occasionally flashing a charming smile at guests, no doubt including Madeleine.

Hugo could see the rise of her chest enhanced by the thrill of the extra attention on her—she was breathing deeply. He could also see her hips fidgeting.

“You’re going to put him off his music,” he said to her now, as the bartender retreated to tend to another guy at the other end of the bar.

“You wanna bet me I can?” she grinned, pulling the hem of her dress down as far as she could over her thighs—which was hardly very far at all—as though bashful.

“Sure. Without leaving the stool,” he said.

“Okay,” she said. “If I can’t do it… I promise you can watch me do whatever you want me to do when we get home.”

“You won’t change immediately into sweatpants?”

“I won’t change into sweatpants.”

Hugo felt his loins tingling, his cock thickening at the thought of unpeeling her dress. Madeleine gave him the kind of smoldering gaze that made him strongly suspect she’d be willing to do that for him even without losing a bet. She still seemed to feel somehow indebted to him for forgiving her little transgression at the bookstore, though she didn’t need to.

“And if you can?” he asked her.

She shifted a little in her seat, and he could tell she was tingling between her thighs as well.

After pondering, she gave him a wicked look, and said in a low voice: “If I can, then you have to make me come without leaving the building.”

Hugo shivered in anticipation, though he immediately began trying to figure out how such a thing might be possible.

“Okay,” he said. “Go on then.”

“Sure?” she grinned.

“I bet you can’t do it.”

Madeleine flashed him a wicked glance, and seated there opposite him in the barstool, she lifted her behind, reached under her tiny little dress, and slipped off her panties. The piano man didn’t stand a chance.

*

Hugo couldn’t quite believe the beautiful blonde sitting just a few feet away from him on another bar stool was quite the same woman he’d married.

Had she really just handed him her damp little panties and then continued their conversation as though nothing untoward had happened whatsoever?

“...It’s got the most gorgeous wood floors…”

Talking about Lucy finding a new apartment in Brooklyn, about the fact that she was likely to move down from Boston in just a few days, all the while sitting on that stool, her dress so short her bare thighs made the faux leather creak every time she moved.

“…you get so much more space for the money over there…”

Allowing the piano player to continue peering up her legs—only this time, there was no longer a little triangle of white lace at the apex to obscure her heavenly delights.

“…her father grew up down in Vinegar Hill, you know…”

“Uh-huh,” Hugo not entirely listening to her, and this time she knew he wasn’t and didn’t really care for once, loving his eyes on her, the fact he was captivated by her.

Only, then the piano player got up and left, leaving the two of them looking at each other, a touch disappointed. Who claimed the win if the subject of their wager threw in the towel?

Maybe he was just away for a cigarette break. Hugo wondered if he had to cool down a little after catching sight of what Madeleine had just been showing him.

“So I like this,” Madeleine said quietly, dropping her whole vacuous conversation about her friend’s migration across the East River now that she didn’t have a piano player to shock.

“I’ll say,” he said, loving that he was allowed to ogle his wife, while other men might only be able to take sneaky looks.

“No, I mean Date Night,” she said, though she liked that she was able to turn her husband’s head with that short dress, providing amusement even with their wager on hold.

“Oh, right, yes. That too.”

“It’s a shame we didn’t try it before—ages ago.”

“Yes. But we weren’t in a great place, were we?”

“No, we weren’t. But that’s all behind us, isn’t it?” For a moment, forgetting where they were, what she was doing with regard to their little side bet, Madeleine seemed deeply regretful for what her condition had meant for her husband all those years.

“Completely behind us,” he said, attempting to sound confident, though it wasn’t up to him whether or not they left her condition behind.

She smiled. Said: “I feel like we have so much to catch up on, we’ve missed so much, haven’t we?”

“I guess we have Date Night to help catch up.”

“Not just Date Night.”

Both of them were distracted by the return of the piano player, which seemed to lighten the mood again.

Hugo saw his wife remember what she was supposed to be doing on that bar stool under the terms of their bet, then she was opening her legs a little more, allowing light to penetrate the vale between her thighs.

Hugo had to try to resist the temptation to turn his head to check on whether there was any impact on the pianist. He didn’t want to tip the guy off to their interest in him.

“It’s kind of sexy, isn’t it?” she smiled warmly, seeing her husband’s eyes trailing up her bare thighs, and the slight hint of frustration that from where he was sitting, he couldn’t quite see what he wanted.

“Date Night?” Hugo wasn’t sure if she wasn’t now referring to her little show for the piano player. Or trying to continue their conversation as cover.

“Well, we both get to dress nicely for each other, and spend a nice evening out on the town—and then we know we can get home and tear off each other’s clothes…”

“Are you kidding?” he chuckled. “You drive me crazy. Every time I see you.”

“Crazy?” One of her eyebrows bobbed up, and almost as though to reward his answer, she slipped a couple of fingers under the hem of her dress and shifted it up her thighs an inch or two, offering him a little more of her smooth skin.

Her show wasn’t merely for the benefit of the piano player, it seemed.

Explaining, he said: “You’re so cheerful now...”

She giggled, “And that drives you crazy?”

He shrugged. “Three and a half years, you were miserable. It wasn’t your fault—it was the condition. But it kind of sapped the energy out of me. But every now and then—maybe only every few months—something would make you smile. Best of all was when I made you smile. That made me feel so incredible… what can I say? Those little moments gave me the energy to get through the dark times.”

She looked at him, pitying him, but also clearly grateful for the support he’d provided during those dark times.

He continued: “You know, I learned to really make the most of those little smiles you occasionally gave me—you know, to make myself feel better.”

“Really? Sweetie!” Madeleine flashed her eyes, opened her mouth wide in melodramatic shock. This from a girl trying to reenact a key scene from the movie Basic Instinct right there on her barstool.

Nevertheless, Hugo found his cheeks heating up in a mild blush. “You know guys have needs, even if they can’t be… fulfilled.”

“There’s nothing wrong with fulfilling your own needs, sweetie.”

He nodded. “Thing is,” he said, “I kind of got used to that situation, and since you started your treatment, and you’re happy a lot of the time now…”

“Really?”

“God, I feel like a horny teenager again.”

“Sweetie…” Madeleine was positively beaming, and now fanned her face to make light of her highly aroused state. She glanced around to see if anyone other than her husband or the targeted piano player was noticing her state of undress. Then she slipped her dress up a little more on her thighs.

“Can you see?” she whispered, her wedding ring glinting in the light as she lifted the garment even further, opening up the view between her legs especially for him.

Hugo caught his breath as he laid eyes on the little dusting of gold on her sweet mound, and around the soft pink folds of her pussy. “You’re so beautiful,” he breathed.

“It feels so wicked,” she whispered in reply, and now glanced past her husband to see if the piano player had noticed.

Hugo couldn’t see what was going on behind him, but he could tell from his wife’s face that she wasn’t being ignored. There was a kind of glow about her, an underlying bloom of pride and delicious arousal.

He saw her shift one knee just an inch or two further to the side, opening herself even further to the stranger’s gaze, and heard her utter a tiny little gasp. Hugo felt the heat of jealousy and raw excitement burst inside his chest at the thought that another man was checking out his wife’s most intimate parts.

“He can see me,” she said so quietly her husband almost couldn’t hear it over the tinkle of the piano behind. “He’s looking up my dress.”

Madeleine suddenly looked Hugo right in the eyes, blushing furiously, as though she’d suddenly decided that staring direct at her husband was the safest way to avoid her new admirer’s gaze, to protect her reputation while a stranger feasted his eyes on her bare pussy.

She seemed really embarrassed, and yet also seriously turned on—and somehow Hugo felt in-tune with her confusing mix of emotions, since his own cocktail of white-hot jealousy and blistering arousal had that same conflicting chaos.

Hugo saw her knees quivering a little, as though there was a little war going on inside her to keep her legs open—her powerful sense of excitement in pitched battle against her innate sense of shame.

“Oh God, Hugo,” she said, and he heard a tremor in her voice. “I’m not sure I can handle this after all.”

“We can go home any time you like, honey.”

“No…” she said, a wicked glimmer returning to her eyes, pushing out the fear. “I have a bet to win.”

Without warning, she suddenly and quietly lifted her right knee, resting her foot on the edge of her stool, completely opening up her pussy for public view, her dress appearing to be nothing more than a shirt. Now it was Hugo’s turn to gasp—he could see her beautiful flower in all its glory, her lips flushed with arousal and glistening with her excitement.

Both of them suddenly noticed movement off to the right, and turned to catch sight of their waiter the split second before the extraordinary distraction at the bar caused him to knock into a table, pitching the tray he had been carrying forward to split its collection of glasses everywhere.

Madeleine suddenly slapped her thighs together, but as the waiter stood frozen by what he’d seen, in that instant as the glasses crashed to Earth, obliterating the peaceful atmosphere of the empty restaurant, both she and Hugo heard the piano player suddenly stumble over his keyboard, his music grinding to a halt.

She didn’t care if she’d won the bet indirectly—by affecting the waiter, whose dropping of glassware then disrupted the music.

Madeleine shot her arms up into the air, whooping at least semi-drunkenly in her glorious victory.